Hogwarts, and Today's Accomplishments
Dec. 4th, 2007 03:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unforthToday, I've edited, packed, and cleaned almost everything out of my apartment. It's kind of nice like this, it feels so much BIGGER. Ha.
You never realize just how much of what you write is utterly meaningless until you have to reduce a 44 page grant to 25 or else it will not be considered for funding. I'm writing this as I'm about to start my 6th or 7th run through in the past three days. I have 7 lines left. GAAAH. (of course, by the time I actually post this, I'll be able to also say I have triumphantly succeeded. Because there is no choice but to succeed. :) )
Yep, there it is. Didn't even take me that long. :) Of course, I'm still missing a little info, but that's okay. I'll find a place for it, and cut a few more lines here and there, and then...one down, one to go!
Meanwhile, packing, I discovered that during the big update that took them all day yesterday, LibraryThing has finally fixed what I always thought was the biggest flaw in their system, and thereby created a lot of work for me: they've made an effective way to handle multiple authors! Oh, glee! God, I'm a librarian. :) Now I'll have to add artists (when it's not the author) and translators to all my manga, what a mess.
Anyway, after I finished the edit, I packed another box. I had thought this would be the last, but when I went to pack my second suitcase (having packed the first last week) I decided that life would be far more pleasant with one more box. Sigh. It's costing so much, but it really can't be helped. However, this is entirely to keep my bags manageable - at this point I'm pretty positive that I COULD fit everything in my suitcases, but then they'd just charge me a fortune at the airport (I'm sure I'll to pay there anyway, but not as much, I mean, one bag contains a book press and the other contains a convection oven, not exactly light things...) and I'd have to manage these huge heavy bags. Instead, I think I'll just pack one more box, pay the money sooner, get the stuff much, much later, and spare myself lugging the bags. So everything is packed now except my last bit of laundry and two weeks worth of clothing, plus a few books, my PS2, and a few other odds and ends like the laptop. I've fit everything pretty handily in to the two huge suitcases I brought, my carry on, my laptop backpack...and what will be 7 boxes...or is it 8? It's 8. Which were all 1/2 - 2/3 filled with books plus random other stuff so that they wouldn't be TOO heavy. If only I could have filled them all the way with books, I'd not have had to send so many. I also produced about a box worth of stuff that was part of living day to day that I'm leaving behind, and a few books to take to Book Off cause I don't want them.
I still have a few things to do, but I've got time - a little more Christmas shopping I keep forgetting to do, and actually cleaning my apartment and emptying the fridge and stuff - I'm mostly out of food, fortunately, so that'll be fine...I'm doing what I always do, jumping the gun by a few days, but it's not that bad, and now my apartment is very pleasantly empty of random shit. ;)
Oh, and my holiday itinerary has changed again. My brother called and said he and K. had talked it over and they're going to NYC on the 13th of December, which means no ride from Bloomington to me. Revert to plan A: I already have a plain ...plane... ticket from Indy to Newark the morning of Monday the 17th, as per my original plans. So I've (re)gained about 24 hours in Bloomington, at the price of having to fly in to Newark - where B. will pick me up and we'll proceed to NH as planned.
You know what I'm NOT sorry about in leaving Japan? This FUCKING SCHEDULE! Here it is, it's 11:30 PM and I'm really stinking tired and I want to go the fuck to bed. But I can't. Because J., one of our clients, needs me for help with the budget, and I just got off the phone with her - I'd hoped we could resolve stuff in one phone call, but no, no, she's going to call me back. Now, I was a little clever, I told her I wouldn't be available after 11 AM, and so she's going to TRY to call me back before 11. Which means I now am stuck staying up till 1 AM on the possibility that she'll call me. And last night, I stayed up til midnight waiting for a fax which might not have come until much later (thankfully, it came only a few minutes after midnight) so that I could on it for an hour. Working this late at night when I wake up at 9 or 9:30 in the morning fucking sucks. It's worth it to go back just so I don't have to do this shit any more. Of course, it had to be that the grant would be due the same day I leave. That would be just my fucking luck. AARGH.
Okay. I don't feel any better, but I should stop. I wouldn't want J. to hear how irritated I am on the phone. Oh, and I've gathered the first step of how far people guess things - she's figured out I don't live in New York, and I told her that even though I have an IN phone number I don't live there, but now she's taken all the weird pieces to apparently assume that I'm only available in the mornings and evenings because of other work. I agreed that I was only available in those times before explaining. I still don't know why I don't want her to know where I live, but there it is. Sigh.
Well, I've got an hour and a half before I can go to sleep. I think I'll go write something. Hogwarts. That'll do.
Tomorrow, I get to start writing the last sessions events! Phew, I'm getting close to being done now! Then I just have to figure out what comes next...but either way, I'll take a break once I've finished the last game and it's immediate repercussions (from Delia's pov, anyway...)
School was as it is always was when we returned. Over the holiday a lovely layer of snow had fallen, and now it glistened to perfection as I’ve only ever seen it do at places where wizard’s frequent. Over the first weekend, when we had a day to get used to being back, students staged vast snowball battles – undeterred by the actual battles taking place – and nearly everyone was in good spirits. I was, personally, a little unhappy. I’d not ended up working on potions at all over the holiday, and my stocks were dangerously depleted, so I spent the weekend brewing whenever I wasn’t busy with some duty or other, and stocked up a few of the easier to make brews. Meanwhile, whenever I could spare a few minutes, I worked on the potion for Celestine, which I’d sadly neglected more than most things due to being busy before the holiday as well.
I was spurred on in this by Lycia, who came and found Celestine and myself on the very first evening back. “This is very interesting,” she said in her direct fashion as she handed the necklace back to Celestine. She’d had it over almost 2 months at this point.
“What does it do?” asked Celestine breathlessly.
“Control. It receives a signal – magical or electrical in the muggle fashion, it can receive both – and by doing so it controls the wearer. It’d only work on a wild beast, I’d say, and it sends impulses that prevent the wearer from attacking, directs their motion, that sort of thing. It’s used for training dogs or lions or chimera or dragons, I imagine?” she added curiously, clearly wondering where we’d come across it.
I wasn’t sure what electrical meant or what impulses might be, but the rest had been very clear. “So who ever sent the signal would have complete control over the wearer?”
“Yes, I suppose. I won’t do for small things, though, it couldn’t be used on a human to make them do any fine work, though it might work for big things. For wild beasts, I’m certain,” she added confidently.
Celestine and I thanked her without satisfying her further curiosity, and promised her that she could keep the necklace once we were finished with it by way of a reward. Then, we had a hushed, hurried conversation of our own. It made perfect sense; the necklace uses this electrical thing and magic to control the children when they become werewolves. With this, the lycanthropes they create could be used as an army!
Needless to say, this discovery spurred me to want to find some way of getting rid of lycanthropy. How could one ever face an army of werewolves? They’re fast, tough, bloodthirsty, and completely inhuman. That they ARE humans, and that they’re being made into monsters against their will, only makes the whole thing that much more horrible. Yet experimenting takes time, and I had little hope of a breakthrough in the near future.
The students from Durmstrang were still here, I noticed, which seemed utterly beyond explanation. Once again, though, while rumors flew, no one seemed to know why they remained, and no one seemed to give it much thought beyond gossip. The general consensus seemed to be that either Palucid Nox was courting some woman, or that the whole lot of them were trying to avoid the war – and who could blame them for wanting to do that?
On the first Monday of classes, GAB met for the first time. It was just me, Katrina, and the Lunari’s, and Professor Patronius, who was to lead us. He gave a long talk on what our duties would be, and we asked questions, and when it was done we did some training. I would describe it more fully, but in truth it wasn’t terribly interesting. We were to nebulously “support” WAP, which sounded like we would sort of cheer them on from the background, and we were to act as a school defense force if the need arose. We were to receive training in first aid and all learn to apparate if we didn’t already know so that we could help with evacuating people and similar such things. We were fully acquainted with the school grounds – even places that had previously been forbidden to us – and given details of the teachers’ strategies related to the defense of the school which had been developed in case of an emergency. Indeed, almost every duty that was at all interesting related to defending Hogwarts. While of course there was the chance the school would be attacked again, still this was not the grand adventure that the WAP boys were having on the continent. The other three complained bitterly after the lesson was over, though I was vaguely relieved more because I didn’t have the time to be adventurous than for any other reason.
As classes resumed, the monotonous rhythm of life at Hogwarts resumed, and days passed steadily to weeks and the weather grew colder as January proceeded. Word of the war grew worse, too, as the fighting didn’t lapse in the winter, and the long nights of the season the casualty list of wizards grew longer. I learned to apparate and do first aid at GAB lessons, and some interesting offensive spells, but there was still no talk of us taking missions. I resumed Quidditch practice, and the team’s first match was in February. Marcus was busy entirely with WAP, and seemed to be out of the castle as often as in, and tales of what they were doing circulated wildly through the student body. And steadily, a feeling of tension grew amongst us all. There was a storm coming. We could all feel it. We didn’t know what it was, or when it would hit, or what the results would be, but the ominous feeling of it, the heavy air, had everyone on edge. I did my duties, and tried to do the other things I’d promised, and maintain my class grades, and all the while I noticed that I was starting to look over my shoulder. Something was building; something was coming.
You never realize just how much of what you write is utterly meaningless until you have to reduce a 44 page grant to 25 or else it will not be considered for funding. I'm writing this as I'm about to start my 6th or 7th run through in the past three days. I have 7 lines left. GAAAH. (of course, by the time I actually post this, I'll be able to also say I have triumphantly succeeded. Because there is no choice but to succeed. :) )
Yep, there it is. Didn't even take me that long. :) Of course, I'm still missing a little info, but that's okay. I'll find a place for it, and cut a few more lines here and there, and then...one down, one to go!
Meanwhile, packing, I discovered that during the big update that took them all day yesterday, LibraryThing has finally fixed what I always thought was the biggest flaw in their system, and thereby created a lot of work for me: they've made an effective way to handle multiple authors! Oh, glee! God, I'm a librarian. :) Now I'll have to add artists (when it's not the author) and translators to all my manga, what a mess.
Anyway, after I finished the edit, I packed another box. I had thought this would be the last, but when I went to pack my second suitcase (having packed the first last week) I decided that life would be far more pleasant with one more box. Sigh. It's costing so much, but it really can't be helped. However, this is entirely to keep my bags manageable - at this point I'm pretty positive that I COULD fit everything in my suitcases, but then they'd just charge me a fortune at the airport (I'm sure I'll to pay there anyway, but not as much, I mean, one bag contains a book press and the other contains a convection oven, not exactly light things...) and I'd have to manage these huge heavy bags. Instead, I think I'll just pack one more box, pay the money sooner, get the stuff much, much later, and spare myself lugging the bags. So everything is packed now except my last bit of laundry and two weeks worth of clothing, plus a few books, my PS2, and a few other odds and ends like the laptop. I've fit everything pretty handily in to the two huge suitcases I brought, my carry on, my laptop backpack...and what will be 7 boxes...or is it 8? It's 8. Which were all 1/2 - 2/3 filled with books plus random other stuff so that they wouldn't be TOO heavy. If only I could have filled them all the way with books, I'd not have had to send so many. I also produced about a box worth of stuff that was part of living day to day that I'm leaving behind, and a few books to take to Book Off cause I don't want them.
I still have a few things to do, but I've got time - a little more Christmas shopping I keep forgetting to do, and actually cleaning my apartment and emptying the fridge and stuff - I'm mostly out of food, fortunately, so that'll be fine...I'm doing what I always do, jumping the gun by a few days, but it's not that bad, and now my apartment is very pleasantly empty of random shit. ;)
Oh, and my holiday itinerary has changed again. My brother called and said he and K. had talked it over and they're going to NYC on the 13th of December, which means no ride from Bloomington to me. Revert to plan A: I already have a plain ...plane... ticket from Indy to Newark the morning of Monday the 17th, as per my original plans. So I've (re)gained about 24 hours in Bloomington, at the price of having to fly in to Newark - where B. will pick me up and we'll proceed to NH as planned.
You know what I'm NOT sorry about in leaving Japan? This FUCKING SCHEDULE! Here it is, it's 11:30 PM and I'm really stinking tired and I want to go the fuck to bed. But I can't. Because J., one of our clients, needs me for help with the budget, and I just got off the phone with her - I'd hoped we could resolve stuff in one phone call, but no, no, she's going to call me back. Now, I was a little clever, I told her I wouldn't be available after 11 AM, and so she's going to TRY to call me back before 11. Which means I now am stuck staying up till 1 AM on the possibility that she'll call me. And last night, I stayed up til midnight waiting for a fax which might not have come until much later (thankfully, it came only a few minutes after midnight) so that I could on it for an hour. Working this late at night when I wake up at 9 or 9:30 in the morning fucking sucks. It's worth it to go back just so I don't have to do this shit any more. Of course, it had to be that the grant would be due the same day I leave. That would be just my fucking luck. AARGH.
Okay. I don't feel any better, but I should stop. I wouldn't want J. to hear how irritated I am on the phone. Oh, and I've gathered the first step of how far people guess things - she's figured out I don't live in New York, and I told her that even though I have an IN phone number I don't live there, but now she's taken all the weird pieces to apparently assume that I'm only available in the mornings and evenings because of other work. I agreed that I was only available in those times before explaining. I still don't know why I don't want her to know where I live, but there it is. Sigh.
Well, I've got an hour and a half before I can go to sleep. I think I'll go write something. Hogwarts. That'll do.
Tomorrow, I get to start writing the last sessions events! Phew, I'm getting close to being done now! Then I just have to figure out what comes next...but either way, I'll take a break once I've finished the last game and it's immediate repercussions (from Delia's pov, anyway...)
School was as it is always was when we returned. Over the holiday a lovely layer of snow had fallen, and now it glistened to perfection as I’ve only ever seen it do at places where wizard’s frequent. Over the first weekend, when we had a day to get used to being back, students staged vast snowball battles – undeterred by the actual battles taking place – and nearly everyone was in good spirits. I was, personally, a little unhappy. I’d not ended up working on potions at all over the holiday, and my stocks were dangerously depleted, so I spent the weekend brewing whenever I wasn’t busy with some duty or other, and stocked up a few of the easier to make brews. Meanwhile, whenever I could spare a few minutes, I worked on the potion for Celestine, which I’d sadly neglected more than most things due to being busy before the holiday as well.
I was spurred on in this by Lycia, who came and found Celestine and myself on the very first evening back. “This is very interesting,” she said in her direct fashion as she handed the necklace back to Celestine. She’d had it over almost 2 months at this point.
“What does it do?” asked Celestine breathlessly.
“Control. It receives a signal – magical or electrical in the muggle fashion, it can receive both – and by doing so it controls the wearer. It’d only work on a wild beast, I’d say, and it sends impulses that prevent the wearer from attacking, directs their motion, that sort of thing. It’s used for training dogs or lions or chimera or dragons, I imagine?” she added curiously, clearly wondering where we’d come across it.
I wasn’t sure what electrical meant or what impulses might be, but the rest had been very clear. “So who ever sent the signal would have complete control over the wearer?”
“Yes, I suppose. I won’t do for small things, though, it couldn’t be used on a human to make them do any fine work, though it might work for big things. For wild beasts, I’m certain,” she added confidently.
Celestine and I thanked her without satisfying her further curiosity, and promised her that she could keep the necklace once we were finished with it by way of a reward. Then, we had a hushed, hurried conversation of our own. It made perfect sense; the necklace uses this electrical thing and magic to control the children when they become werewolves. With this, the lycanthropes they create could be used as an army!
Needless to say, this discovery spurred me to want to find some way of getting rid of lycanthropy. How could one ever face an army of werewolves? They’re fast, tough, bloodthirsty, and completely inhuman. That they ARE humans, and that they’re being made into monsters against their will, only makes the whole thing that much more horrible. Yet experimenting takes time, and I had little hope of a breakthrough in the near future.
The students from Durmstrang were still here, I noticed, which seemed utterly beyond explanation. Once again, though, while rumors flew, no one seemed to know why they remained, and no one seemed to give it much thought beyond gossip. The general consensus seemed to be that either Palucid Nox was courting some woman, or that the whole lot of them were trying to avoid the war – and who could blame them for wanting to do that?
On the first Monday of classes, GAB met for the first time. It was just me, Katrina, and the Lunari’s, and Professor Patronius, who was to lead us. He gave a long talk on what our duties would be, and we asked questions, and when it was done we did some training. I would describe it more fully, but in truth it wasn’t terribly interesting. We were to nebulously “support” WAP, which sounded like we would sort of cheer them on from the background, and we were to act as a school defense force if the need arose. We were to receive training in first aid and all learn to apparate if we didn’t already know so that we could help with evacuating people and similar such things. We were fully acquainted with the school grounds – even places that had previously been forbidden to us – and given details of the teachers’ strategies related to the defense of the school which had been developed in case of an emergency. Indeed, almost every duty that was at all interesting related to defending Hogwarts. While of course there was the chance the school would be attacked again, still this was not the grand adventure that the WAP boys were having on the continent. The other three complained bitterly after the lesson was over, though I was vaguely relieved more because I didn’t have the time to be adventurous than for any other reason.
As classes resumed, the monotonous rhythm of life at Hogwarts resumed, and days passed steadily to weeks and the weather grew colder as January proceeded. Word of the war grew worse, too, as the fighting didn’t lapse in the winter, and the long nights of the season the casualty list of wizards grew longer. I learned to apparate and do first aid at GAB lessons, and some interesting offensive spells, but there was still no talk of us taking missions. I resumed Quidditch practice, and the team’s first match was in February. Marcus was busy entirely with WAP, and seemed to be out of the castle as often as in, and tales of what they were doing circulated wildly through the student body. And steadily, a feeling of tension grew amongst us all. There was a storm coming. We could all feel it. We didn’t know what it was, or when it would hit, or what the results would be, but the ominous feeling of it, the heavy air, had everyone on edge. I did my duties, and tried to do the other things I’d promised, and maintain my class grades, and all the while I noticed that I was starting to look over my shoulder. Something was building; something was coming.
